Contributing Writers

The Trump administration is planning to shutter the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights at the Environmental Protection Agency and has placed nearly 170 employees on administrative leave. “I’m very concerned about the deregulation and the focus on corporate profits,” says Mustafa Santiago Ali, the former head of the environmental justice program at the EPA.

A lawsuit by a coalition of labor unions Thursday prompted the Labor Department to agree not to release any sensitive economic and privacy data to DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk. Musk’s group has already gained access to sensitive files and computer systems across other key agencies as part of a push to restructure much of the federal government.

We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California about the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on the federal bureaucracy and the gutting of various agencies, led by the president’s unelected billionaire adviser Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“No DOGE employee should have access to any of Americans’ sensitive, confidential information, and they should not have access to be able to stop payments,” he says.

We speak with Karla Gilbride, the former general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who was fired by President Trump in late January along with two commissioners at the federal agency that enforces civil rights law in the workplace.

As the Trump administration, led in part by his unelected adviser Elon Musk, sets its sights on cutting the Department of Education, we speak to longtime educator Jesse Hagopian about what he calls an “extremist, authoritarian power grab to dismantle public education and enforce ideological conformity.” Hagopian, whose new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education, traces the history of racist educational censorship, adds, “This isn’t about protecting children.

We speak to Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart about his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, which is “addressed to my fellow Jews” and criticizes what he characterizes as the increasing privileging of Zionism as a part of Jewish identity.

World leaders are rebuking Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip, ethnically cleansing the region of Palestinians. “There’s no question that even though the entire region would reject it … the fundamental reality is that we are heading to the complete destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza as a matter of status quo,” says our guest Omar Baddar.

We speak with Karla Gilbride, the former general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who was fired by President Trump in late January along with two commissioners at the federal agency that enforces civil rights law in the workplace.

The Trump administration claims an order to withhold funds from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth is “already having its intended effect” as hospitals announce a halt to gender-affirming care for trans patients. The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and others filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of transgender youth who say the order is depriving them of medical care “solely on the basis of their sex and transgender status.

As President Trump continues to sign new executive orders attacking transgender people and their rights, we hear voices of protest from New York, where hundreds of people rallied Monday outside NYU Langone Hospital in Manhattan to demand it continue providing gender-affirming care for trans patients, after news that some patients had been dropped by the hospital.

President Donald Trump met at the White House Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Trump again suggested ethnically cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian population. Trump has already mused about moving Gaza’s population to Jordan and Egypt, which those countries have flatly rejected, but on Tuesday he went even further and said the United States should “own” Gaza and develop it into a seaside tourist destination.

An executive order that purports to combat antisemitism on university campuses is likely to chill free speech and target students for pro-Palestine, antiwar and anti-racist views. The order, signed by President Trump, threatens to deport noncitizen college students and other international visitors who take part in protests considered antisemitic under a broad and contested definition of the term.

Before Guantánamo became what it’s known for — the “forever prison in the war on terror” — its “ambiguous sovereignty” as a U.S. military base was long utilized to incarcerate Caribbean asylum seekers to the U.S. We speak to scholar Miriam Pensack, who researches the history of Guantánamo, in light of President Trump’s recent proposal to once again imprison asylum seekers at the base’s prison complex.

As Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits Latin America on his first foreign trip in his new post, we look at the Trump administration’s policy orientation toward the right-wing government of El Salvador and the left-wing government of Guatemala with journalist Roman Gressier. Rubio is visiting both countries during his trip, which is expected to cement Trump’s ties to Salvadoran strongman enthusiast Nayib Bukele and to the conservative opposition in Guatemala.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting Latin America on his first foreign trip in his new post. One of his stops is Panama, where President Trump has threatened to invade and take over control of the critical trade route of the Panama Canal in response to its growing ties to China. It is a deeply unpopular proposition in Panama, seen as a “reversion to the mid-20th century imperial encroachment that Panama so intentionally confronted over the course of the Canal transition.

President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congressmember from Hawaii, is facing major qualms from her former colleagues. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Democrats grilled her over her refusal to label whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor.” We discuss Snowden’s case and what it revealed about government surveillance of the American public with Chip Gibbons.

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority.

The future of USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, is uncertain after Elon Musk said President Trump had agreed to shut it down. The Tesla billionaire and presidential adviser has inserted himself into the inner workings of the federal government, gaining access to sensitive computer systems and making sweeping changes for which he has no clear authority.

We speak with longtime trade policy expert Lori Wallach about President Donald Trump’s move to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China — the three largest trading partners of the United States. It has sent global stocks tumbling and raised fears of more inflation.

President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congressmember from Hawaii, is facing major qualms from her former colleagues. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Democrats grilled her over her refusal to label whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor.” We discuss Snowden’s case and what it revealed about government surveillance of the American public with Chip Gibbons.